October 23, 2018
From the time Trump was elected, we knew it was only a matter of time before he openly declared his allegiance to the white supremacists’ vision for this country. Of course every policy goal he pursued was evidence of that, but his statement at last night’s rally for soulless hack, Ted Cruz, deprives journalists and apologists of the fig leaf of deniability, (Source: “Trump Comes Out As A White Nationalist,” by Stephen A. Crockett, Jr., TheRoot.com, 10/23/18).
Trump’s speech yesterday, along with the strategic leak of a plan to define transgender people out of existence- thereby validating and encouraging their persecution, is straight out of Hitler’s playbook. Hitler started by destroying scientific works on the study of sexuality, moved on to closing gay clubs to drive gay people underground, and finally herded gay men into prisons and concentration camps (Source: “Persecution of Homosexuals in the Third Reich,” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia, encyclopedia.ushmm.org). Meanwhile, the Republicans’ contempt for the right of people with pre-existing conditions to have healthcare would be right at home in ancient Sparta.
With two weeks to go before the midterms, the Republicans’ closing strategy is to whip their base up into a frenzy of fear and hatred and suppress the votes of everyone else. In addition to the well publicized voter suppression efforts in Georgia and North Dakota, here in New York, Long Island Congressman Lee Zeldin sent mailers to Democratic leaning households listing the wrong deadline for absentee ballots. Although Zeldin claimed it was a “mistake,” he made the same mistake in 2016 (Source: “Zeldin mailer uses wrong deadline for absentee ballots,” by David M. Schwartz, Newsday.com, 10/22/18). Voter suppression is a key element of the national Republican Party strategy for maintaining power in the face of widespread opposition to their policies. The Brennan Center for Justice reports that rampant voter purges in Florida, Georgia and North Carolina, strict voter i.d. Laws in Arkansas, Iowa, Missouri and the aforementioned North Dakota, along with myriad other restrictions put into place since the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision to gut the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v. Holder, pose a great threat to the bedrock Constitutional principle of “One Person, One Vote,” (Source: “How the 2018 Vote is At Risk — And What You Can Do To Protect It,” BrennanCenter.org).
Cataloguing these barriers should not discourage us, but rather, give us a clear understanding of what we’re up against, so that we devise the best strategies to overcome it. The impressive turnout in states with early voting, such as Texas, Georgia, and Florida, at levels that dwarf 2014, is encouraging, but not sufficient to carry us to victory in this critical election. The Republican base is energized thanks to the relentless fear-mongering of demagogues. We will need to get every infrequent voter to the polls and protect their votes once they get there in order to win. Make no mistake, this is the first battle in what promises to be a long war and we’ve all been drafted.
#VOTE
#GOTV
#14DAYS